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Nothing like a deadline to motivate and timelines in the future are closer than they appear. 2025 is awfully close now, and when calendars change over, we will be officially five years to go for the ISS deorbit. That's pretty darn soon when we're talking space timelines full speed ahead on commercial space stations. In the meantime, there really isn't much time to lose. Today is December 18, 2024. I'm Maria Varmazes and this is T. Axiom revises its space station schedule Utelsat taps Airbus for new OneWeb satellites, SES launches two new O3B MPower satellites, and T Minus producer Alice Carruth will be speaking to Ryan Brown, Executive Director of spacecom, and they'll be sharing what's to come at that conference. By the way, we here at T Minus will be at Space Week in Florida late January, so see you there. Happy Wednesday everybody. Let's get into it. Yesterday, our top story was about Voyager Space's Star Lab hitting some key milestones in support of NASA's post ISS plans in low Earth orbit. And today Axiom Space is announcing changes to its Axiom Station module sequence in alignment with those NASA goals. This change will allow Axiom Station to operate independently of the ISS by 2028, which is two years earlier than planned. The original plan was for the Axiom Habitat one to go to the ISS first before the power and thermal module attached. Now the power and thermal module will go first, with the habitat next and other modules to follow. This revised plan will also make space for the deorbit vehicle on the iss. This approach enables the station to transition to a free flying platform after the power and thermal module, or axpptm, is operational, which will ensure uninterrupted human presence and advanced commercial space goals. The AXPPTM is currently being constructed by Telus Alenius Base in Italy, with final integration planned in Houston by 2025. Staying in Europe though, for a bit on these next few stories. Eutelsat has selected Airbus Defense and Space to build the extension of its OneWeb Low Earth Orbit constellation. Airbus will build the first batches of the extension, totaling 100 satellites with delivery targeting the end of 2026. The new satellites will have technology upgrades, notably 5G on ground integration. They will be technologically compatible with Europe's Iris Squared constellation, which we talked about earlier this week on the show, by the way, paving the way for its entry into operational service in 2030. SCS successfully launched its latest pair of O3B MPower satellites on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space center last night. Both satellites will join the first 6:03B MPower spacecraft already in operation at medium Earth orbit, adding incremental capacity to the initial O3B MPower constellation. The five remaining O3B MPower satellites for that constellation are currently being manufactured and are scheduled for launch over the next 18 months. Earth observation company Ice I has closed a $65 million extension to an existing growth funding round. The financing consists of a mix of debt and equity instruments and will increase investment in further developing icei's leading SAR satellite constellation, its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platform and related systems. The extension brings the total amount raised in 2024 to $158 million. In total, ISEI has raised over $500 million to date. Citus Space has raised $14 million through shares of its common stock. Citus has entered into definitive securities purchase agreements with accredited and institutional investors for the issuance and sale of units consisting of shares of Class A common stock together with warrants at a price of $2.07 per unit. The company intends to use the proceeds from the offering for working capital and general corporate purposes. Japan's commercial space sector experienced a setback earlier today after Space1 failed to successfully launch. Tokyo based startup Space1 was aiming to become the first private Japanese company to place a satellite into orbit. It failed for a second time after the 18 meter 23 ton solid fuel Kairos no. 2 rocket experienced a malfunction during the ascent. The launch was automatically terminated 3 minutes and 7 seconds after liftoff during the combustion of the second stage rocket. Space One President Masakazu Toyoda apologized for failing to meet the expectations of those who supported the launch, stating, we will quickly investigate the cause of this outcome and clarify measures to prevent a recurrence. Toyota also added that Space One does not consider this incident a failure. He told a news conference that the data and experience gained from this event are extremely valuable. Space One is planning on a third launch attempt in the near future. Viasat has been awarded a new contract by the U.S. defense Innovation Unit to deliver networking capability in support of the Replicator initiative The contract for the DiU opportunistic resilient and Innovative Expeditionary Network Topology Project, which is also known by the acronym Orient, covers resilient command and control connectivity across unmanned systems. ViaSat will provide multi domain uncrewed secure Integrated communications architecture, which is also known as the acronym music. Now MUSIC includes software defined networking to enable the seamless and resilient connectivity of autonomous systems using multi transport pathways. Momentous has signed a contract with SpaceX to join an upcoming transporter rideshare mission launching as soon as early 2026. The company says it plans to use this port for the launch of its Orbital Service Vehicle to transport a mix of payloads from the US Department of Defense and commercial customers to Low Earth orb. And that is it for today's Intel Briefing. Thank you for listening. As always, links to further reading on all the stories mentioned are included in our show notes along with information on the ISS National Lab sponsored experiments due to return on the next cargo resupply mission and a story from the New York Times on Elon Musk and SpaceX facing federal reviews Hey T Minus Crew, if you find this podcast useful, please do us a favor and share a five star rating and a short review in your favorite podcast app that'll help other space professionals like you to find the show and join the T Minus crew. Thank you so much everybody. We really appreciate it. This episode is brought to you by Dutch Bros. Get stoked for all the holly jolly vibes this season at Dutch Bros. Stay cozy with returning winter faves. Hazelnut Truffle Mocha and Candy Cane Mocha. Plus the new Winter Shimmer Rebel Energy Drink blends up sweet cream and blue razz flavor with soft top and shimmer sprinks to keep those spirits energized all winter long. Download the Dutch Bros app to find your nearest shop. Order ahead and start earning rewards. T Minus producer Alice Carruth spoke to the executive director of Spacecom earlier this week about Florida's Space Week, which is January 27th through 30th, 2025. And yeah, as we mentioned at the top of the show, T Minus will be participating in the events that week and we'll be recording from a booth on the convention floor. So let us know if you're going to be joining us and definitely come by and say hi.
